falling really isn't so bad, well, at least not the first time. usually that first time, it catches you off guard, you're not expecting it and you're down before you even know what happened. it's really not that the fall is bad at all, it's the landing that leaves the marks. the first time you fall you normally don't even notice right away, it comes later with the bruises, aches and pains that remind you that you even fell and didn't just have some happy ride which ended on the ground.
fall number two, now that's a whole other story. your reflexes are a little more engaged this time and you might actually try to catch yourself. this isn't second nature yet though so undoubtedly you still end up down, but certainly more aware of what just happened.
after numbers three, four and five you definitely begin to develop those reflexes and refine them, catching yourself nearly all the time. rarely do you end up down, except occasionally when it might happen just a bit differently and you can't quite pull it out in time. but for the most point, you've learned your lesson and it's certainly no surprise what's happening, and it begins to occur in slow motion.
as you approach the tenth fall, things begin to change. you start to realize what circumstances surround these trips and begin to safe guard yourself against them, avoiding the precarious and in general being more cautious. situations that would have lead to falling begin to fade since you're now avoiding getting to close to the ledge and are far more calculating.
quite a substantial amount of time can go by with zero falls, and almost no indications that they were even possible. life gets really comfortable, you might even realize you carry no bruises if you thought to look. old scars even begin to fade, receding white or pink lines that bear hardly any resemblance to the monstrous events that earned them. it becomes so easy to forget the safeguards, to ignore the instincts that taught us to brace ourselves, or avoid danger.
then out of no where, bang! after such a long hiatus, we take a wrong turn, lose our footing and in the nanoseconds we watch as the ground comes crashing back up to meet us. and this time, slow motion or not, it hurts like hell.
yes, our brain kicks in the minute we start to go down, but it's too late. with no safeguards, no precautions, we're left with nothing but the hope that our previous experience with learning to fall will kick in some old instinct and maybe we'll hit bottom in such a way as to do as little bodily damage as possible. remembering not to put our hands out so we avoid a broken arm, we sacrifice the knee and roll into it. this fall, more than any others, is definitely going to leave marks. scrapes, bruised bones and the general wounded ego-that we could have allowed ourselves be taken down so easily. no one wants to be caught down on the ground, picking up the pieces of themselves, having to brush off and some how manage to laugh it off and say 'well, i didn't see that one coming...'. we all know that in general, there is nothing worse than taking an epic fall, long and hard, plummeting like an idiot face first into concrete with all the world watching. all of us prefer to take our falls in private, where we can keep that shame to ourselves.
all of this considered, it is entirely and uniquely fitting to me that we call it 'falling' in love. although i'd have to say, if i had to choose the scars i'd rather live with, i might choose concrete over love.
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